I had originally attempted to read this book as a teenager and having found it rather difficult to get into gave up (my tbr at the time was far too long a list to dawdle). I'm very glad I decided to revisit it, as I am now begining to read through authors works in full turning my attention to Agatha Christie's remarkable number of books felt like the next logical step, but I hesitated to attempt to read this first installment myself again recalling how difficult it had been. 
I was delighted to find the audiobook narrated by Hugh Fraser as I remember seeing him as Hastings when my grandparents and I would watch Poirot in the evenings, and I must say that delight continued as I listened! He posses a wonderful ability to vary his voice for different roles and keep them consistent to the character each time with minimal wavering and he's capable of imparting the right emotion for the lines as necessary. I truly felt he was baffled when Hastings was and infuriated when Poirot was - it was far easier to listen to than to read I found, purely because the narration kept it so interestingly vivid. 

The book itself is fun and all together not too long, enough intrigue to keep my attention with a satisfying ending that did not feel far fetched (as some "twists" end up). The characters feel alive and of the time, the setting is easily visualised and context is given through the narration plainly and understandably. The language used may be difficult to read if one isn't used to the way people talked at the time but is easy enough to become comfortable with - especially when listening to it.

Overall a wonderful book and a lovely time. 4.75/5 ⭐

This was the second Agatha Christie novel that I've read, but it was the first one I've read in English. I've been toying with the idea of reading Agatha Christie's novels since I saw some wonderful looking translated editions at my country's biggest book fair. Since "Read an Agatha Christie book" was a prompt in one of the challenges I'm trying to complete this year (in an effort to diversify my reading tastes), I thought a first Hercule Poirot book was a good place to start. Growing up watching Hercule Poirot movies with David Suchet made the quirky little Belgian detective a fond childhood memory. At the time, I wasn't aware this was also the first Agatha Christie published book, so I'm all the more pleased for starting my Agatha Christie exploration properly.

"The Mysterious Affair at Styles" opens with the character of Lieutenant Hastings retelling the events of how he happened to be invited to Styles Court by his acquaintance John Cavendish, the stepson of Styles Court's current owner, Mrs. Inglethorp. Mrs. Inglethorp, a lady in her seventies, became the family matriarch after the death of her first husband, Mr. Cavendish, who left the majority of his wealth to his wife instead of his two sons. While Mrs. Inglethorp might have been perfectly generous to her two stepsons, her second marriage to Arthur Inglethorp, a man twenty years younger, made the rest of the family quite displeased.

A few days into Lieutenant Hastings's stay at Styles Court, Mrs. Inglethorp dies in her bed, her symptoms seemingly pointing to poisoning. Hastings invites Hercule Poirot, a very famous detective who left quite an impression on him after they met in Belgium, to investigate the case.

It took me a few days to finish this book, as I kept falling asleep after reading only a few pages in the evening. In the beginning, during the setup of the scene and before Poirot's arrival, the writing did drag a bit. Lieutenant Hastings might entertain the idea of being a detective and proclaim his methods further advanced than Poirot's, but his overconfidence couldn't have been more obvious. Maybe it makes me a mean person, but I did enjoy the parts where Poirot would not so subtly insult Hastings's intelligence. At the same time, I have to say Poirot seemed quite fond of Hastings and appreciated his other qualities.

As for the murder mystery, even though my initial assumption of who the culprit/s might have been was correct, all the subsequent events and clues managed to throw me off the track completely, so by the end, I was quite surprised by the reveal.

I'm not sure about other editions of the novel, but the one I got for free contained a few racist slurs and instances of antisemitism.

I decided to rate this book somewhere around 3 stars as I didn't find it the most compelling, can't-put-the-book-down type of mystery. I still found it sufficiently entertaining, even if I had to pause more than a few times to look up translations of Poirot's random French exclamations. It did make me wonder if reading a translation in my native language (hopefully with readily annotated French translations) might make the experience somewhat more enjoyable.

Themes: single POV, murder mystery, detective

while not being bad by any means, this is one of my least favorite AC books. i struggle to follow along sometimes when the reader is supposed to be "out of the loop" from Poirots thinking.